


Only Human

by Khrat9



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Episode: s02e12 Luthors, F/F, Minor Kara Danvers/Mon-El, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9911450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khrat9/pseuds/Khrat9
Summary: “Ah, well… I am human,” she says jokingly, cheekily looking at Kara’s blue eyes. She grabs the paper bag, Kara’s token of friendship and Lena’s joke feels like a confession. An admission of sorts or maybe a flaw. Because Kara laughs and Lena can’t help the smile from stretching across her lips. Kara brings her donuts and Lena feels content just to bask in Kara’s warm light. “Thank you, Kara.”Begins with 2x12 Luthors and then it's AUKara's POV added: More than Only Human





	1. Only Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I wrote this really late into night so I'm not really sure what this is. I don't even know how to tag it. I wrote it while listening to Thriving Ivory - Ghost for a Flower so you can blame the angst on it. The first scene is directly taken from Supergirl 2x12 with a few tweaks on it. All mistakes are mine. :)
> 
> Warning : Sexual contents and violence.
> 
> I hope you'll like it! Happy Reading!

 

 

_I am only human._

_I said I'm only human._

_I'm human. I'm human. I'm human._

**Thriving Ivory** _-_ Flower for a Ghost

 

 

Lena presses her fingers against her lips, worried and sad, as she listens to the news. She watches her life be displayed on the screen; her testimony is now something experts argue about, her innocence still in doubt, her name repeated over and over again. Lena is used to it. Being a Luthor and all but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get tiring. It doesn’t mean it stops hurting.

 

“Lillian Luthor’s defense attorney tries to downplay Lena Luthor’s testimony, characterizing her statement as the angry rant of an estranged daughter,” the reporter says dramatically and Lena has had enough. She switches the TV off.

 

She takes a breath and turns around as the door of her office opens. She can’t help the smile at seeing Kara Danvers walking toward her, or the sudden relief at seeing a familiar face after a tiring day in court surrounded by sharks where her testimony became another veiled demand for her to justify of her innocence. Kara comes closer, hesitant or concerned. Lena isn’t sure.

 

She smiles. “Everyone in National City has got an opinion about me. Ungrateful daughter, heroine… bitch,” she jokes deprecatingly, easily. Kara makes everything easy, and Lena startles, already regretting her joke. There is something about Kara that makes her want to confide and Lena tries to backtrack quickly, smiling wide like those sharks on TV because Kara Danvers is also a reporter, and everything Lena might say will be held against her, published on the papers tomorrow for everyone to see. It’s like being swept in a whirlwind and Lena knows her life isn’t hers anymore.

 

“No, no, I’m here as a friend,” Kara reassures her and Lena sighs, rubbing the back of her neck, her muscles tense and achy with the beginning of a headache. “I thought you could use some fried sugary goodness in your life,” Kara says showing the white paper bag she has been holding on. Lena perks up, surprised and delighted. A godsend in a green dress. A hero with glasses and a comforting smile. “You eat donuts, right?” She asks teasingly, knowing perfectly that she does. In fact, it’s a guilty pleasure that Lena unwittingly confessed to her not so long ago. Lena tries not to smile.

 

She looks away, feeling playful and carefree again. The tiredness she felt just a few moments ago is now gone, chased away by the radiating presence of her friend. “Ah, well… I am human,” she says jokingly, cheekily looking at Kara’s blue eyes. She grabs the paper bag, Kara’s token of friendship and Lena’s joke feels like a confession. An admission of sorts or maybe a flaw. Because Kara laughs and Lena can’t help the smile from stretching across her lips. Kara brings her donuts and Lena feels content just to bask in Kara’s warm light. “Thank you, Kara.”

 

It ceases to surprise her how easy it is to confide in Kara. It’s a thing now. Something she never thought she would ever do, so used she was to keep everything so close to her chest, to have everything under her control. Kara barges through the walls around her heart like she barges through the doors of her office. Effortlessly, freely. And Lena remembers that she herself gave the express permission to her staff to let Kara do that. It’s maddening how quickly Lena falls into her gravity. Kara smiles at her and Lena opens up. She shares secrets no one ever wanted to know before, secrets no one ever took the time to find out because they are not Luthor’s but just Lena’s and it is refreshing and surprising that Kara listens. Kara listens to her and Lena can’t help but trust this wonderful woman who didn’t stop at her name. This woman who takes the time to bring her donuts after a long day and listens to her feelings when everyone was scrutinizing her actions, ready to blame her, ready to shred her apart.

 

“You don’t think I should feel guilty for not seeing that monster, right?” Lena asks. Because she does feel guilty, a bit, or a lot. She doesn’t know. Her mother has a knack for making her feel guilty for everything since she was a child, and Lena is confused. The twelve calls from her mother’s lawyers don’t help either. If anything, they only confuse her more because she doesn’t understand why her mother would want to see her when she has been so hell-bent, her whole life in making her feel unwanted, like she was an outsider. Lena doesn’t know what to think. The narratives blur in her mind.

 

“Well, do you think you would find peace of mind by visiting her and telling her how you really feel?” Kara asks her softly, without judgment, and Lena has to look away.

 

It’s not what she wanted Kara to say. She knows her mother. She has known her for a long time and her love isn’t free. Everything is a transaction. Lena is scared that even if she does get everything out of her chest, Lillian would only use it to get to her, like she did some many times before. She looks at her donut, the icing sticking to her fingers. “Even if I did it wouldn’t make a difference, you know,” Lena mumbles, chewing thoughtfully, keeping a bit of that sugary goodness in her mouth. “She’s been the same way since the day I met her.”

 

Kara sighs and Lena looks at her. She looks sad. That’s the first thing Lena notices. Kara Danvers looks sad and resigned and it shocks Lena to the core. “I’ve spent most of my life wishing I could talk to people that are no longer here,” Kara says far away, not meeting her eyes and Lena listens attentively. She watches this woman who never failed to bring warmth and light into her cold, stark white office, as she unfolds before her eyes. Lena always felt a kind of understanding with Kara. She saw that same wishful light in her eyes fueled by secrets and regrets too painful to be spoken aloud. “She is still here,” Kara continues and Lena sees how difficult it is for her. How painful. Kara’s donut now forgotten. “And she is still your mom.”

 

Lena sighs. In this world where she is used to conspiracy and betrayal, aliens and world domination... Kara reminds her with a small, sad smile that they are only humans after all and Lena listens. They are only humans and life is too short to live with regrets. “Yeah.”

 

 

*******

 

Lena is terrified and nearly close to tears as she watches Kara jump in front of her as an explosion rocks the stage. She closes her eyes, holding on tightly to her friend, this woman who didn’t hesitate for a second to put her body in between hers and the fire, the destruction. Lena holds Kara tightly against her for what may be the last time and wishes desperately that she won’t get to survive this because having Kara’s death on her conscience is not something she can live with.

 

Brave, beautiful Kara who keeps on saving her all the time and never ceased to believe in her. Lena holds on and loses her breath as her body floats away, away from the ground and the explosion.

 

Lena opens her eyes, panicked and stunned as she watches brave, beautiful, human Kara hold her against her chest, clothes still fuming from the explosion, and glasses askew. She shrieks and tries to move away. Kara gaps, surprised. Lena feel herself plummet toward the ground before a body, a solid body, like steel holds hers into a vice like grip.

 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Kara says into her ear, as Lena trembles and holds on to Supergirl for dear life, twisting the fabric of Kara’s clothes, her everyday clothes into her trembling hands. “Hold on tight. I won’t let you go. I promise. Don’t move. It’s okay. You are safe,” Kara whispers against the wind and Lena feels like there’s not enough air to breathe.

 

Kara is Supergirl. Brave, beautiful Kara is not human. Reporter Kara is in fact Supergirl and Lena feels stupid. Oh, so stupid. She feels tears at the corner of her eyes and she knows it’s not because of the mid-flight scare. She knows it’s not because her new project for her company is again attacked, in ruins, surely thanks to her mother. She doesn’t cry for the media whirlwind she knows L-Corp will be involved in, in the next few weeks.

 

Supergirl drops her off at Kara’s apartment and Lena feels so very stupid as she sits on the comfortable couch, Kara’s scent all around her. Lena presses her head against her knees, trying to calm her racing heart.

 

“I have to go and make sure everyone is okay,” Kara says, confident and powerful, a hand on her trembling back. “I’ll come back as quickly as I can. Don’t leave, you are safe here,” she assures her and disappears back through the balcony, the flapping of her cape billowing in the wind, her clothes from this morning in a heap on the floor.

 

Lena clenches her jaw and breathes deeply through her nose. Kara is Supergirl. It’s so obvious now. How Kara seemed to always know things she wasn’t supposed to know or how Supergirl was sometimes privy to things Lena only said to Kara in confidence. Little things, little oddities appear in her mind like summoned by the new discovery. Like how Kara and Supergirl are never in the same room at the same time. Always apart from a few minutes. Enough for a Kryptonian to get a change of clothes.

 

The association makes themselves in her mind and the evidence becomes more than obvious; they are overwhelming. They are glaring at her. Lena doesn’t know if it is stupidity or naivety. The stupidly naive thought that she might have a friend only because she is Lena and not just a Luthor. Is Kara even her friend? It’s the thought that obsesses her as she hears Kara or Supergirl land hesitantly on the balcony.

 

“Lena?”

 

Lena doesn’t respond. She clutches in her hands one of the ridiculous pillows all around Kara’s couch in a desperate effort not to scream, not to yell because Kara was her friend but like everyone else... Kara lied to her.

 

“I know, it’s a lot to take in,” Kara whispers calmly, hesitantly and Lena recognizes her voice, the reporter’s and Supergirl’s, all in one.

 

“Why did you lie to me?” Lena asks, refusing to meet Kara’s eyes. If she does, Lena might break and she got hurt enough to know how to protect herself even on the edge of heartbreak.

 

“I… It’s not…” Kara stammers, undecided on how to tell her how all this was just a scam, how their friendship was never one in the first place. Lena isn’t sure but she doesn’t wait to find out.

 

“Why pretend to be my friend!” Lena hisses, angry and confused, standing up and throwing the pillow back onto the couch to face Kara who looks at her tongue-tied, with pain in her eyes, the crest of her house proudly on her chest.

 

“I am your friend!” Kara assures her with that same belief and that same affection Lena used to see from across her couch, during late night talks in her office.

 

“Was it to spy on me?” Lena continues, disregarding her comment, tears blurring her vision. Everything is a blur and Lena feels lost. “Did Superman ask you to do it? Keep an eye on me?” Lena scoffs suddenly, choking up slightly. “Because there is no such thing as a good Luthor!” She repeats venomously the same narrative that has been playing on TV for months on end, printed on every newspaper since Lex went mad. Lena hears her voice crack against her will, crushed by the sudden despair she feels clutching at her heart. Her mother’s warning echoing in her head. She has no one on her side. Lillian might have been right after all. Lex might have become insane because of Superman because Lena looks at Kara and she feels like her mind might collapse too.

 

“That’s not…” Kara trails off, stepping toward her and Lena steps back. Kara stops, watching her with sadness and an array of other emotions Lena refuses to acknowledge because she can’t. Kara can’t make her believe in things with her big, blue eyes and trembling lips. Kara can’t be the friend who brought her donuts when she has been lying to her for months.

 

“Was any of it true? Everything you told me?” Lena finally whispers.

 

Kara nods, pleading her to understand. To hear her out like they did so many times before. “Everything I told you is true. I’m sorry I lied to you about me being Supergirl. I didn’t hide it from you because you are a Luthor… At first yes, but… not anymore,” Kara says stepping toward her once more but Lena flinches away.

 

“Don’t…” Lena whispers. Don’t touch me is left unsaid, standing like a wall in between them. But above all, her involuntary flinch screams don’t hurt me and they both know it.

 

“I don’t know how to fix this,” Kara finally whispers with tears in her eyes.

 

“I don’t think you can this time, Supergirl,” Lena smiles wide and sad, finally acknowledging the sight in front of her. The cape, the skirt, the symbol and looks away.

 

“I’ll prove it to you,” Kara utters suddenly with the same confidence, the same belief Lena heard in Kara Danvers’ voice when she told her that she’ll always stand up for her and in Supergirl’s when she urged her to be her own hero. “Every day, I’ll prove to you that our friendship was never a lie.”

 

Lena shudders and closes her eyes. “I don’t want to see you anymore,” she says and turns away. She leaves without looking back. She’s only human after all and one day she will break even if Kara doesn’t.

 

*******

 

Kara’s proofs of friendship appear in the most unexpected of ways. Or maybe not but Lena is always surprised to find a paper bag with a few donuts inside, innocently laid on her desk when she swore they weren’t there a few seconds ago when she got up to pick up the pen she just dropped. Sometimes it’s pastries from a bakery she liked in Metropolis that appears magically before her. Lena is never quick enough to catch a glimpse of the superhero. She only hears the sound of her balcony door closing gently behind her. It goes on for a few weeks and Lena realizes that it is hard to stay mad at Kara.

 

Even if they haven’t talked for weeks, Lena always feels her presence at her side. In press conferences or in the sky as Lena switches off the light on her desk and readies to leave the building. Kara Danvers continues to write amazing articles, sometimes in her defense or sometimes challenging her on a new L-Corp’s product and Supergirl continues to watch over her as Cadmus finds new ways to attack her company again and again.

 

Lena misses Kara. Simple. The hurt she feels at Kara’s lie is still fresh, still painful but Lena misses her friend and that absence might hurt just as much, if not more. No one barges in through her doors anymore. Jess smiles at her hesitantly, sorry even, every times Lena perks up when she opens the door. Now that Kara has been introduced into her life, Lena doesn’t remember how she lived her life before. How she managed the loneliness or if she ever used to smile without it seeming forced.

 

Lena sighs and gets up from her chair. Tired of being alone. Tired of being angry. Oh, so tired of feeling sad. She cancels every meeting she has for the rest of the afternoon and asks Jess for a big white paper. Jess looks at her curiously, surely because of her sudden energy and does what she is told. As soon as the paper is in front of her Lena writes in big letter her request for a chat and then she sticks it on her window and waits.

 

Supergirl appears a few minutes later. Apprehensive, walking hesitantly past her balcony and into her office. Lena nods to her from her couch.

 

“I… You surprised me. I didn’t have the time to get you anything,” Kara whispers.

 

Lena smiles and shakes her head. It is impossible to stay mad at Kara. Lena motions her to take a seatt next to her like they used to. And Kara does. It’s awkward. It’s painful. Lena looks into Kara’s eyes and realizes that they are both clueless. They don’t know how to proceed, how to move forward.

 

“I..” Lena starts.

 

“You…” Kara begins at the same time and Lena chuckles and then laughs. Kara smiles hesitantly before she grins widely as Lena continues to laughs uncontrollably. It’s not funny in the least but the relief, the comfort of Kara’s presence invades her cold, dark office and Lena can’t help but laugh at their predicament.

 

“I’ve missed you,” Kara breathes suddenly, watching her as she swipes away the tears at the corner of her eyes.

 

“I’ve missed you too,” Lena confesses with a smile.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kara continues in earnest, taking her hand in her warm ones. “If I could… if I could do things differently…” Lena shakes her head. They both know, they wouldn’t change a thing. Kara acknowledges her refusal at believing they weren’t leading the life they lead and sighs. “Everything is so complicated. And I just… I didn’t think… I’m sorry,” Kara finally says.

 

“I’m not… quite there yet,” Lena whispers, looking at their hands, fingers intertwined. “But I’ll try.”

 

“It’s all I want. Thank you!” Kara scoots closer to her and Lena breathes in and meets blue eyes.

 

“So…” Lena begins hesitantly. “Who are you exactly?” She asks, gaining confidence as she sees Kara chuckle and then laugh.

 

“Kara Zor-El. Part time reporter for Catco Magazine and part time Supergirl.”

 

Lena nods and it’s like nothing has changed. The woman in front of her is still the Kara Danvers, she might be slightly crushing on and the superhero she came to respect. All mashed into one. It’s enough to make her dizzy but Lena inhales deeply, holding on to Kara’s warm hand. “I understand that they are some things you can’t tell me. But let’s agree not to lie to each other again… Deal?”

 

“Deal!”

 

Lena smiles and basks in Kara’s warm light. This otherworldly being that never ceased to draw her in from the very beginning. Kara talks about Krypton, about what she remembers of her life there and her life with the Danvers. Lena listens as an image of the woman in front of her is suddenly being painted in warm, tragic, painful and exquisite colors. If Lena had a crush on Kara before, she is pretty sure she is now falling in love.

 

Lena is only human after all. Humans have a tendency to chase after things they can never have.

 

*******

 

It is surprising how fast Kara wants to integrate her in her group of friends after she signed a clause with the DEO two weeks after their talk.

 

It’s weird.

 

Lena recognizes a lot of faces. Agent Danvers, of course, who nods at her from the bar. Detective Maggie Sawyer, who handcuffed her two months ago, playing pool with the man, Winn Schott, who helped her with her black body field generator under the stage of her party. The detective watches her curiously, observing her quietly as Kara introduces her to everyone.

 

“James Olsen, but you already know him,” Kara says as James nods at her, still wary. “And my boyfriend, Mon-El.”

 

Lena eyes widens as she sees Mike of the Interns smile at her. “Hi! Great party the last time, really great…” he trails off awkwardly and Lena nods not really knowing what to do. “I’m the bartender. What do you drink?”

 

“Scotch,” she replies, dumbstruck as she watches Kara follow Mon-El to the bar. Lena takes a seat and swallows her nerves.

 

“I've got you covered,” Alex says sliding in the booth next to her. “Any particular reason for the strong drink?”

 

Lena shrugs, watching Kara talking with Mon-El. “Long day.”

 

Alex hums, serving her a glass. The brown liquid sloshes into the glass. Lena is desperately curious because Kara never talked about him. In all their conversations, she never mentioned him once and Lena doesn’t have anything to lose. Not anymore. Not now that she already lost everything.

 

“Is she happy?” She asks watching the couple argues about something. “Is she happy with him?”

 

Alex doesn’t respond right away and Lena waits, sipping at her drink. The atmosphere of the alien bar, tense at first with her entrance, quickly goes back to normal and Lena’s wistfulness drowns away into the noise and the agitation around.

 

“I thought she could be,” Alex gulps a drink of her own and tops up her glass and hers too. “I thought she was only afraid to… jump in. I nudged her to take a risk,” she whispers lowly and Lena has to lean toward her to understand. “I think I might have made a mistake.”

 

Lena nods and smile as Kara joins them again with everyone filling up the booth, drinks in hands.

 

Their friendship is slowly going back to where they were before. Or maybe more, maybe it goes deeper now that they agreed not to lie anymore.

 

Lena doesn’t want to lie. She watches Kara butt heads with Mon-El again away from their table and she can’t help but wonder why. Why him? Why this man who behaves like an insecure child and hovers over Kara as if he forgot she was freaking Supergirl!

 

Okay, Lena might be a bit drunk. Or a lot. She doesn’t know. Turns out Alex really know how to drink and Maggie sarcasms make her laughs into Winn’s shoulders. Winn smiles and tells her a joke she hasn’t heard since her first year in engineering many years ago and she burst out laughing. Uncontrollable laughter as Winn hastens to tell another one. Lena hears the groan from everyone around the table before Kara interrupts Winn’s punch line.

 

Lena groans too.

 

“Lena, are you okay?”

 

“Never better!” Lena says with two thumbs up. Or is it three?

 

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

 

“No,” Lena protests. “Winn was telling that… that joke. It’s so funny Kara, you should hear it!”

 

“Yeah,” Winn begins before Kara glares at him.

 

“Come on,” Kara chuckles putting her arm over her shoulder and suddenly the world turns on its axis and Lena feels like falling before Kara presses her tightly against her. “We are leaving. Say bye.”

 

“Bye!” Lena says loudly. A chorus of drunken goodbyes at various stages of drunkenness shouts back at her.

 

The cold suddenly hits her skin and Lena shivers, pressing closer to the warm skin of the Kryptonian next to her.

 

“Damn, I forgot I flew you here. Do you think you could handle a flight home?”

 

Lena giggles. “Not if you want me to vomit… everywhere!”

 

“We’ll walk then.”

 

Lena might be drunk but it doesn’t take away her super sharpness from noticing everything around her. Lena stumbles on her heels.

 

Kara chuckles, holding nearly all of her weight against her or maybe all of it. “You really are super sharp right now. No doubt.”

 

Lena stops and watches Kara curiously. Did she say that aloud or is that another power Kryptonians have?

 

“Yes, Lena. You said that aloud. And no, Kryptonian can’t read minds.”

 

“Thank God!” Lena exhales and Kara raises an eyebrow at her. Lena smiles sheepishly. It’s better if Kara doesn’t know what passes through her mind most of the time. Especially when she is around.

 

The walk in the cold, silent streets of National City sobers her more and more and Lena can now walk on her own but she doesn’t because Kara is warm.

 

“How much did you have to drink?”

 

“Not enough,” Lena whispers and curses herself for her honesty.

 

“Why? What’s happening?” Kara asks her, concern written all over her face.

 

Lena doesn’t answer. If she doesn’t answer, she can’t lie. And they promised not to lie to each other.

 

Kara walks her to her door, opens it for her. Lena sits on her couch, watching distractedly as Kara finds everything she needs from her drawers and cupboards. Her pajamas are thrown at her face and Lena grumbles, changing from her tight skirt even tighter tops, restricting bra and high ponytail. She is finally free.

 

Someone clears their throat from behind her and Lena eyes widens as she turns toward a stunned Kara, frozen with a glass of water in her hands and tablets of Advil for her hangover. Damn, Lena forgot she was here.

 

“I… uh… Here!” Kara says giving everything she had in her hands to her.

 

Lena takes them, blushing slightly and puts them on the coffee table.

 

“Do… Do you need anything else?”

 

Lena sighs. “My blanket?”

 

Kara leaves quickly for her room at the other end of the penthouse and brings back the blanket they used every time Kara came in for a movie or just to talk when they haven’t seen the other for a few days in a row.

 

“All set?”

 

Lena nods and Kara walks toward her door. “Why him?” Lena asks suddenly as Kara stops, her hand on the doorknob. She is not drunk. At least she doesn’t think she is. Not as much as when she left the bar at least or maybe just enough to confront Kara in her lie.

 

Kara doesn’t answer, still turned away, facing the door.

 

“You never mentioned him before,” Lena remarks, walking toward Kara who stands frozen on her spot. “You could have, at movie night here two days ago or my office a week before and all the times you came by before that,” Lena puts her hand on Kara’s hard shoulder and turns her toward her. “Why Mon-El?”

 

“He likes me,” Kara whispers. “And he tries his best.”

 

“Does he?”

 

“You don’t know him.”

 

Lena nods. “I don’t. But from what I saw tonight…” she trails off, watching Kara’s expression. Kara gulps and looks away, a light shine in her eyes. “Do you love him?” Lena asks quietly, trying to meet her eyes.

 

“He reminds me of home,” Kara whispers instead and Lena sighs.

 

“It’s not enough to be with someone. Why him?” Lena asks again. She knows Kara is circling around the truth, persuading herself of something she might not be so sure of wanting.

 

Kara doesn’t answer. She looks at the floor and Lena lets her because she understands how hard it is to see the truth and even harder to confront it. The hardest ones aren’t those around them, the hardest ones to acknowledge come from within after unearthing them through layers of protections, walls and most of the time denial. Lena is a master at ignoring those.

 

Until tonight.

 

“I was afraid to be alone,” Kara whispers with tears in her eyes.

 

And Lena kisses her. She knows she shouldn’t do it. She knows she should stop because it’s wrong. Kara needs her friend and Lena is kissing her.

 

Kara doesn’t respond at first. She stays frozen before she isn’t anymore. Kara kisses her back desperately, cradling her jaw between her steeled hands and Lena sucks on her bottom lip, holds it in between her own and doesn’t let go.

 

Lena is only human after all and she burns herself willingly against Kara’s skin as they shed their clothes away.

 

It feels rushed.

 

This whole situation is spelled like mistake but Lena doesn’t care and Kara doesn’t seem to either as she presses against her on the couch, both of them naked and hungry for more. Kara kisses her neck, patches of skin becoming red under her lips and Lena moans as she grinds against a warm, hard thigh.

 

It’s messy and passionate and quick. Lena exhales and trembles as she comes against Kara’s thigh. Kara kisses down her stomach and Lena stops her, pushing her against the back of the couch and straddles her quickly, biting every inch of skin she sees, sucking marks that don’t appear. Kara groans, shivering at scratches against her ribs that don’t hurt.

 

Lena is only human and she can’t resist at seeing a God fall beneath her lips. Kara’s whole body trembles and undulates at the rhythm of her tongue between her legs and Lena holds on tightly. It is so profoundly humane, Lena thinks as she hears Kara’s breathing accelerate and then stops for a few infinite seconds, to want things out of reach. To chase the unattainable. To want something more even if it hurts, even at the risk of it burning her wings.

 

Kara trembles against her arms, burning like the sun and Lena holds on because she knows the fall will come.

 

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Kara whispers and time accelerates and doesn’t stop as the Kryptonian gets up from the couch, from her arms and tries to find her clothes in panic, in guilt.

 

Lena doesn’t say a thing and watches quietly the panicked woman breeze through her penthouse, always in movement. Lena doesn’t say a thing in fear that she might lie. Kara looks at her with pain in her eyes and Lena merely nods. Agreeing to keep silent until they figure it out. Until emotions aren’t threatening to spill everywhere, filled to the brim of their capacity.

 

Kara smiles, a barely there smile and leaves.

 

Lena wonders if she might just be too human for this because the thing with reaching unattainable thing is that the fall is never ending.

 

*******

 

They haven’t talk for two weeks. Lena has not tried to reach her and Kara hasn’t either. There are no more donuts suddenly appearing on her desk miraculously every time she turns away.

 

She shouldn’t have kissed Kara. Not like that. Not after drinking half of her body weight in alcohol and right after learning Kara had a boyfriend. It wasn’t right. Lena doesn’t know what is up with them now. If Kara told Mon-El or not. If they broke up or if they are still together. Lena doesn’t want to know or maybe she does and that’s what kills her the most.

 

Lena sighs and redirects her attention to the scientists giving them a tour of the new L-Corp lab outside of National City. The project has been a longtime coming and Lena is glad to be able to use and produce a new technology inspired from what she saw of Kara’s pod to develop, in partnership with the DEO, a new component as that would ease their travel in space, lighten their public transports in their use of energy and such. The possibilities were endless and Lena grins at Winn, standing next to her as the Lab officially opens.

 

But like every good thing in her life, her mother has to come and ruin it.

 

An explosion shakes the foundation of the building and shatters all the windows around them. Lena falls to her knees, covering her head as shards of glass rains on them. She feels them cut into her skin as Winn motions her to crawl under a table with him.

 

Lena nods but is quickly picked up by her mother’s henchman, part cyborg, part human. Lena tries to get away but he grabs her by the arms and throws her over his shoulder, taking her away.

 

Lena hears Winn screams for her before she is jostled abruptly to the side as the cyborg is punched through a wall and Lena falls on the ground. She hears more than feel her arm break at her fall. It doesn’t hurt that much Lena thinks curiously as she watches Kara battle against Cadmus. The adrenaline, shock also, is so strong inside her veins that Lena feels invincible.

 

There’s blood on her face, flowing out of her forehead and Lena watches distractedly, fascinated even, as it drips on her broken arm. She hears Kara grunt as she is thrown into a wall next to her, her body crumbling on the ground before it flies back against her mother’s henchmen.

 

Lena doesn’t know if her shortened breaths come from her broken ribs or the sight of her mother pointing a gun at Kara. The same gun, Lena knows her mother took from her brother’s hideout, using her DNA. Kara is locked in a fight, at a standstill and doesn’t see the threat just behind.

 

Lena watches helplessly from her spot on the floor.

 

Lena is only human but it doesn’t mean she is a coward. She might not be able to fly, have super strength or be immune to bullets but she can save Kara. She can buy her enough time for the back-up to come in.

 

Lena doesn’t think. Time stops. She runs.

 

Lena runs in between Lillian and Kara as the gun goes off.

 

She hears Kara’s screams and the DEO storm into the building. It doesn’t hurt, Lena thinks as she sees blonde hair and blue eyes asking her to stay awake and fight.

 

Lena closes her eyes.

 

She is only human after all.

 

*******

 

The doctor lists off her injuries and the care they will need for the next month. Lena nods but her eyes are fixed on the Kryptonian clenching her jaw, arms crossed at the corner of her room. Silent and still as the doctor finally, releases her, after two weeks, in the hospital.

 

It’s a relief and Lena gets up to change from her too thin hospital robes, into her own. As soon as her feet touches the floor, Lena feels Kara’s hand on her arm, helping her in putting on her clothes. Kara has been helping her silently ever since she woke up. She would open water bottles for her, help her eat now that her dominant arm is in a cast. Lena doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

Her mother has been arrested. Again. L-Corp is in turmoil since her hospitalization and Jess has been trying her best to keep her updated while receiving Kara’s glare from the silent corner of her room.

 

The silence is unnerving. The perpetual scowl on Kara’s brows even more.

 

But Lena lets her because she recognizes guilt when she sees it and Kara seems to drown in it.

 

“I’d like to go home,” Lena whispers.

 

Kara nods.

 

Her home is exactly how she left it. Minus the blanket folded innocently on her couch.

 

“You’ve been here…” Lena states, confused as Kara clenches her jaw and closes the door behind her. Lena watches her go to her kitchen, taking out food she doesn’t remember buying from her fridge and pills the doctor prescribed to her.

 

“I’ll fix us some food,” Kara whispers. “You’ll take your medication and have a nap,” she takes out plates and cutlery, not looking at her.

 

It’s unnerving.

 

“You don’t have to do this,” Lena walks toward the superhero, who is angrily making her a sandwich. Lena knows because of the precision with which Kara spreads the butter evenly on the bread, the deliberate slowness, the absence of eagerness. “I can do this on my own. You can go,” Lena whispers and it’s like she woken up a storm.

 

Kara shudders and let go of the knife she has been holding. It falls against her countertop with a clank, twisted and broken. “I am not leaving!” Kara hisses with teary eyes and barely controlled energy. Lena stares at her, thunderstruck and mute. “You can’t… just…” Kara stammers breathless and angry, fixing her with a glare as she lashes out. “You can’t just do that! You could have died! You were this close to die!” Kara insists and Lena gets it but she did it willingly.

 

“I…”

 

“No! Just…” Kara shakes her head, holding up her hands. “You don’t need to protect me. I don’t need it,” she continues on a warpath.

 

“So, I should’ve let you die?” Lena asks. Kara’s silence at her question is an answer in itself and Lena rages. “We both know it was a kryptonite bullet in that gun.”

 

“I can handle it!” Kara screams, frustrated. Guilt and fear pouring out of her.

 

Lena scoffs at Kara’s arrogance, the same one she saw for so many years in Superman. “Having incredible powers doesn’t make you invincible, Kara!”

 

“I’m here for a reason and it’s not for you to play the hero!” Kara rages and Lena narrows her eyes.

 

“Weren’t you the one to tell me to be my own hero?” She retorts as Kara bites her lips and looks away.

 

“Not like this,” she whispers, brokenly. “You are only human, Lena.”

 

Lena recoils like she has been slapped. It’s something she had told herself as an excuse; a justification for all the incomprehensible things Kara made her feel. For the recklessness in her actions and her greed. But Kara says it and it sounds like an insult. It sounds like she is less, somehow.

 

“You are human…” Kara walks closer toward her, intense, blue eyes fixed on hers. Lena doesn’t stop her. “And beautiful and fragile…” Kara continues pressing her forehead against hers and Lena nods as she feels the coldness of her fridge on her back. A nice equilibrium against Kara’s burning body. “You are human and you are not expandable,” Kara whispers against her cheeks.

 

“Neither are you,” Lena holds her with her uninjured arm and doesn’t let go as the superhero, the reporter, Kara Zor-El falls against her, crying silently into her neck.

 

“I can’t lose you,” Kara whispers against her skin and Lena holds on tighter.

 

That night and every other night after that, Kara holds her in her arms and doesn’t let go.

 

A month turns into two and then three and Kara still doesn’t leave. Lena is now used to see the reporter work on an article as she comes from work, dinner ready for the both of them. She now leaves the door of the balcony unlocked and Kara gets her own set of keys.

 

Alex comes and goes and Lena sometimes finds the Danvers sisters laughing on her couch, watching TV. Lena changes out of her work clothes and joins them, a spot at Kara’s side waiting for her. Game night is now held in the penthouse. There is way more space and sometimes it gets rowdy but she loves it. Lena doesn’t see Mon-El again.

 

Kara’s clothes are now folded and hanged next to hers, her red cape hidden in her wardrobe. The fridge is always full and her freezer is brimming with ice cream. At the end of the third month, her apartment looks like an odd mix of Kara and her. There is an easel, paint tubes and canvas in the corner while Lena’s latest project lays in pieces on the desk next to it.

 

Four months in and Kara whispers that she loves her against the heated skin of her thigh after Kara had made her lose her mind several time, repeatedly. Lena gaps, unsure if she heard correctly before Kara repeats it again on the skin of her stomach, and then above her heart and against her lips. Lena holds on and doesn’t let go as she whispers it back against Kara’s body, swallowing her moans and groans with her lips.

 

“Remember that day you sent me hundreds of flowers to my office?” Kara whispers against her ear one night as they indulge in donuts in front of the TV. Lena nods and Kara smiles shyly. “You told me I was your hero…”

 

Lena looks at her curiously and waits, licking the excess of sugar off her fingers.

 

“You are my hero too, you know.”

 

Lena exhales, donut forgotten as Kara looks at her lovingly, patiently. “Even if I’m human?” Lena smirks, but only to hide her insecurity better as the question transports them both months ago into their first argument.

 

Kara rolls her eyes and takes her into her arms. Lena settles over her. “Especially because you are human,” Kara whispers against her lips and Lena smiles.

 

Kara had been right all along. She does need sugary goodness in her life.

 

Lena kisses it slowly off Kara’s lips.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Take care!


	2. More than Only Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Some asked for a second chapter in Kara's POV and I caved in pretty quick. I tried not to make it too repetitive since some dialogue are basically the same. And it was so much harder for me to write until I saw the last episode... I'm so mad to be honest. I had most of the chapter already written out but I added extra fluff and cheesiness at the end. It might feel OOC but anyway, I don't care. Canon Kara Danvers feels OOC. 
> 
> WARNING: Sexual contents, violence and Mon-El being a jerk.
> 
> Hope you'll like it. (Sorry for the rant.) Enjoy! :)

 

 

 _I’m only human_  
_I said I am only human_  
_I’m human. I’m human. I’m human._

 **Thriving Ivory** – Ghost for a flower

 

 

Kara waits, nervous and excited, as Lena reads her article. Her heart is beating loudly, her hands are a bit clammy and she waits silently for the verdict.

 

It’s not approval that Kara is looking for from the CEO as she personally came to L-Corp to hand her their latest edition. It feels good to win and Kara wants to share the victory with her friend so that they can both revel in it after the terrible few days they’ve just had.

 

It really feels like they have fought against the world. Kara knew Lena wasn’t guilty. She knew it as soon as Maggie came to arrest her. Lena’s dejected look, the pain and resignation shinning so clearly in her eyes still haunts Kara to this day and as Lena reads her article, Kara makes the vow to never stop fighting for her friend, keep digging and unearth the truth for everyone to see. She finds it hard to believe that no one else sees how good Lena Luthor is when the CEO blushes a little while she reads, a light shine in her eyes and the rhythm of her heart accelerating slightly.

 

Kara is in no way vindictive but Lena exhales, closing the magazine and Kara grins, smug and satisfied as she sees the beginning of a smile on her friend face.

 

“It’s a good article,” she says and Kara looks away chuckling a bit.

 

Victory feels good.

 

“You flatter me,” Lena continues and Kara has to shake her head at her disbelieving tone.

 

“I only wrote the truth,” she maintains quickly. She will stand by what she wrote because more than anyone, Lena deserves this victory even if she doesn’t believe it herself. She looks up and Lena is smiling, still skeptical, as if the thought of someone defending her was more of an indulgence than a real belief. Kara sighs and looks away. “I’m learning to keep digging even when the evidence points one way,” Kara explains, heart heavy. If she learned something this past year and with the Medusa virus more recently, it’s that nothing is only black and white. Appearances can be deceiving and everything she thought to be true and good can hide an uglier truth. Even her own family. “There’s always another side.”

 

“Even when it’s hard to find,” Lena adds, mumbling quietly.

 

“Especially if it’s hard to find,” Kara insists with a smile, hearing loud and clear the lingering resignation in Lena’s voice. She still remembers Lena’s pain and heartbreak, her defeated look at being accused again for something her family has done. For something she couldn’t control. For a past she couldn’t escape from. It echoes inside her and Kara sighs and changes the subject, if only to make her friend smile. “So my office is,” Kara pauses, unable to contain her own smile, “overflowing with flowers…”

 

Lena frowns, eyes bright. “Really…”

 

“Yeah!” Kara sees the smug, playful smile on her lips and she laughs. “You didn’t have to do that,” she protests, smiling still.

 

“Yeah, I did,” Lena insists. “Supergirl told me that it was you who sent her to…” Lena stops and shakes her head slightly, looking a bit lost, still shocked and incredulous at Kara’s willingness to defend her. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she whispers quietly.

 

“Ah, well, that’s what friends are for…” Kara asserts, blushing slightly. She wishes people could see that side of her. She wishes people would stop judging so harshly a woman who thinks that it’s perfectly normal to send hundreds of flowers to someone else’s office only to show her gratitude.

 

Lena shakes her head, wistful, smiling wide. “Yeah, I’ve never had friends like you before,” she says and Kara chuckles, embarrassed and sad as she hears the disbelief still, the lingering pain, the loneliness in her friend’s voice. “Come to think of it, I’ve never had family like you,” she adds self-depreciatingly and Kara nods, acknowledging the confession, the secret beneath. “No one has ever stood up for me like that.”

 

Kara Zor-El lost her home when Krypton died but Lena Luthor never found hers in anyone.

 

“Now, you have someone who will stand up for you,” Kara insists, looking into Lena’s eyes to hammer the point, well, home. “Always.”

 

Kara stares, she doesn’t mean to, but she is suddenly fascinated by the shine in Lena’s green eyes before the CEO looks away and inhales. “Well, Supergirl may have saved me but,” her friend pauses and Kara waits, hanging on a breath as she recognizes the tone, the semi-serious voice in which Lena usually delivers her jokes. “Kara Danvers, you are my hero.”

 

It makes her smile wide and uncontrollably. Kara blushes slightly, laughing with Lena, surprised and delighted because Kara Danvers is not a hero. Kara Danvers is only human, a reporter trying to make her voice heard in the chaos that is the media world, fighting and arguing on end with only a few successes at her belt.

 

Lena hugs her and Kara holds on to her friend, not too tight but she holds on to the belief that maybe, just maybe Kara doesn’t have to choose between being a hero and live a normal life. A human life.

 

Maybe, just maybe, Kara could have it all.

 

The thought lingers in her mind as she leaves L-Corp and debates calling Mon-El, phone in hand. Kara Zor-El sighs and presses call.

 

She might not be human but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve a chance to live like one.

 

*******

 

Kara never meant for Lena to learn it this way. In chaos and confusion. To be fair, she never thought about revealing it to her, ever. Somehow, her being Supergirl didn’t seem as important anymore. She likes the fact that when Lena sees her, she doesn’t see the hero with the cape or the symbol on her chest. Lena looks at her without any expectations and it surprises her every time to see that her friend isn’t out seeking Supergirl as everyone might think with her being a Luthor. No, Lena Luthor looks at her as if clumsy human, Kara Danvers was enough to brighten her day.

 

Kara tries to be quick as she tells Alex and Maggie, now on scene, everything she remembers. It’s not a lot because Kara only remembers hearing a phone ring and then bombs going off next to the stage Lena was standing on. She doesn’t remember anything but Lena’s gasps, her terrified gaze as Kara took her in her arms and the faintest of sob against her shoulder. It breaks her heart and Kara is eager to go back to her. Reassure her. Tell her that everything will be alright. That she’ll protect her. Always.

 

“Thank you, Supergirl.” Maggie says snapping her back from the memory of Lena’s terrified green eyes.

 

“Of course,” Kara nods, ready to fly off when Alex stops her.

 

“You should bring her to the DEO,” she says quietly with a meaningful look.

 

Kara shakes her head. The image of Lena’s trembling body still imprinted in her mind. “I won’t. What she needs right now is a friend.”

 

Alex nods, pinching her lips. “Be careful.”

 

Kara sighs and flies off promptly to her apartment. She lands and sees that Lena hasn’t moved since she left besides clutching one of her pillows harshly in her hands. Kara gulps, suddenly apprehensive. “Lena?”

 

Lena doesn’t respond. She is tense, trembling still. Not in fear, Kara realizes, but in rage.

 

There is tension in the air and Kara feels like the next explosion might just take place in her own apartment. “I know, it’s a lot to take in,” she tries as serenely as possible.

 

“Why did you lie to me?” Lena strikes suddenly, not meeting her eyes, her voice clear and controlled.

 

Kara watches a new kind of chaos unfolds with no way of stopping it.

 

“I… It’s not…” she stammers. It’s not what you think, Kara wants to say. It’s not like that; it’s not whatever Lena is surely thinking right now, and yet all the explanations Kara has, all the reasons the DEO gave her not to reveal herself, all the years she spent hiding, don’t justify the broken look in Lena’s eyes as she glares at her. Kara can’t find the words to explain herself.

 

Lena stands up and throws the pillow away. Kara watches it bounce back on the couch and fall onto the floor. “Why pretend to be my friend!” Lena hisses with anger and disbelief and Kara wishes she couldn’t hear so distinctively the slight break in her voice.

 

“I am your friend!” Kara replies quickly, scrambling to pick up the pieces of their friendship as she sees them falling apart one by one. Their friendship has never been a lie but Lena looks at her with so much contempt and wariness, her eyes lingering on the symbol on her chest that Kara is petrified, crestfallen as Lena looks at her and doesn’t see only human, Kara Danvers, anymore.

 

“Was it to spy on me?” Lena fires off rapidly, tears shining in her eyes and Kara feels powerless. She tries to answer, she tries and tries but nothing come out and the explosions continues in the wake of her silence. “Did Superman ask you to do it? Keep an eye on me?” Lena accuses her and Kara shakes her head. That’s not it at all but Lena, strong, confident Lena breaks before her eyes and Kara doesn’t know how to defend herself. “Because there is no such thing as a good Luthor!” Lena finishes, chuckling softly, as if now believing what everyone always said about her.

 

“That’s not…” Kara tries again but nothing comes out. Despite all the languages she knows and all the myriad of words and concepts floating inside her brain, Kara can’t find the words to say how sorry she is. To say how much she regrets that it has come to this. That she hurt her friend so much that Lena can’t even look at her for more than a few seconds. Actions speaks louder than words and Kara steps forward, hand outstretched toward her friend but Lena steps back with steel in her eyes. Kara stops, breathless, trying hard to stop her lips from trembling.

 

“Was any of it true? Everything you told me?” Lena has the same look in her eyes as that night Maggie came to arrest her. There is the same pain, the same loneliness and resignation shining in the tears that she refuses to cry, like suspended in time, and Kara can’t handle it.

 

“Everything I told you is true. I’m sorry I lied to you about me being Supergirl. I didn’t hide it from you because you are a Luthor… At first yes… but… not anymore,” Kara trails off, pleading softly for Lena to understand. She vowed to defend her friend so that she would never see that look in her eyes again, and yet she is now the one causing it. Kara caused this and she doesn’t know any other way to reach out to her but to move forward, hand outstretched again.

 

Lena flinches away. “Don’t…” she whispers brokenly.

 

Kara nods with tears in her eyes. She suddenly wishes, more than anything, that she could be, right at this moment, only human. If only to spare herself from knowing the exact moment she breaks Lena’s heart. “I don’t know how to fix this,” Kara confesses, helpless despite her incredible powers. Powers which only give her a step by step of Lena’s heartbreak: the irregular heartbeat, the shortened breath, every crack in her voice that Lena tries so desperately to hide. Kara watches, utterly powerless as Lena tries not to cry, clenching her jaw so hard, Kara doesn’t think she needs superpowers to hear it.

 

Lena fails and the destruction rattles the walls of her apartment.

 

“I don’t think you can this time, Supergirl,” Lena says and it sounds like a fault, a flaw to Kara’s ears. Supergirl the hero. Supergirl the symbol cost her Lena, her friend, and Kara Danvers doesn’t know how to fix this.

 

Lena looks away, sad and defeated, and Kara has to try one more time before she loses everything, once again.

 

“I’ll prove it to you,” she exclaims. “Every day,” Kara vows. “I’ll prove to you that our friendship was never a lie.”

 

Lena closes her eyes, letting a few tears escape slowly. “I don’t want to see you anymore,” she says and leaves. Kara watches the door close behind her like finality.

 

Everyone always leaves her in the end.

 

Kara shakes her head, muscles tense and tight, ready to explode before she forces herself to relax. To breathe and unclench her fists. Kara inhales, swallowing back her tears and she refuses to believe what her heart is whispering quietly, incessantly. She might break if she let herself believe it. She bites her lips and eyes her cold and lonely apartment, listening to Lena’s stuttering heartbeat as it leaves the building.

 

Kara heaves a breath, trembling slightly. She won’t give up but she doesn’t know who she should be anymore. Kara Danvers and Supergirl broke this. Kara inhales deeply, urging herself to keep fighting.

 

Kara Zor-El wishes, not for the first time since she landed on Earth, that she weren’t so different. So alien and out of place.

 

Everything would be so much easier if Kara Zor-El were to be human.

 

Only human.

 

*******

 

It’s been weeks, Kara muses, hands flat against the table, looking but not really at some blueprints of a possible CADMUS hideout. It’s been weeks since Lena has talked to her. She had said that she didn’t want to see her again and that was fine, super fine even because Kara can be sneaky. She is absolutely sure Lena didn’t see her once while she deposited little treats on her desk. Under her nose.

 

“Are you okay?” Alex asks her for the umpteenth time, looking at her curiously.

 

“Yes, Alex. I’m fine. I’m great,” Kara insists, waving away her sister’s concern with a smile. “Everything is fine.”

 

“I’m asking you because you just broke the table…”

 

“What?” Kara looks down and sees the crack.

 

“What is it?” Alex asks, taking her hands away from the table.

 

It caves in as soon as her hands leave what was a very flat, very sturdy surface. Kara looks around sheepishly, embarrassed as everyone looks at her. “I’m sorry. I… I think that table was already broken anyway…”

 

Alex sighs and leads her to a corner, away from prying ears. “What’s happening?”

 

“Nothing,” Kara smiles quickly. Alex raises an eyebrow, not buying it.

 

Kara sighs and looks away, biting her lips. She has been bottling up everything for a while now and she fears that if she speaks, or just let the littlest thing out of her chest; she might just explode. She might just destroy everything around her because that’s what she so desperately wants to do. Everything seemed so much easier when she could just hide in a warehouse with James and say what she was mad about and let her fists fly. Destroy cars. Let out the anger behind the anger.

 

But even that doesn’t feel like it would be enough. Not anymore.

 

Kara forces herself to breathe. To unclench her fists as they tremble at her side. Alex is looking at her, waiting patiently as if she forgot that they haven’t been talking much lately what with the DEO and Maggie and… Of course, Kara is glad for her sister. She is happy, more than happy even because Alex deserves the best. Alex deserves every ounce of happiness there is in the world but Kara just… She just wished…

 

And Mon-El has been asking for more and more of her attention lately, following her around, lost and confused, trying to find his place on this Earth when Kara tries so hard to pretend that she isn’t feeling lost herself. That she knows where she belongs. Kara tries to lead by example but she isn’t even sure what is happening in her life anymore. She is just going through the motions and Mon-El never misses a chance to remind her that her sense of self and belonging, the very things spent years on building, only hold by a thread.

 

And James is Guardian. He is Guardian and he continues to put his life in danger, willingly, and Kara doesn’t understand why. She feels like she is the only one seeing the danger; the possible catastrophe that could occur if James just made one mistake. One miscalculation. Humans are fragile. Humans get tired and they make mistakes. James can die but he still does it anyway. He still go out, all vigilante like he is invincible when they both know that she is the invincible one. She should be the one taking the brunt of everything because that’s why her mother sent her here to do.

 

Kara breathes through her nose and closes her eyes.

 

Kara Zor-EL was sent on Earth to protect. She remembers saying to J’onn exactly that. Her mother didn’t send her here to fall in love with a human and have children or live in a house with a white a picket fence. Kara already lost her home. Her whole world. She was here to ensure that what happened to Krypton wouldn’t happen again.

 

And now Lena, the only one with whom she could escape this madness that is her life with a few conversations shared on a couch, is not talking to her anymore and Kara feels overwhelmed.

 

“Is it because of Lena?” Alex asks quietly and Kara deflates.

 

It’s everything, she longs to say. It’s the fact that no matter how hard she tries, as Supergirl or Kara Danvers, Kara still feels like she doesn’t belong. Forced to choose between embracing her powers as a Kryptonian and the longing of living a normal life, like a human. Kara can’t find the equilibrium on which she could be both. Kara isn’t sure it even exists. She looks around at all the agents surrounding them and heaves a sigh, frustrated and sullen.

 

“She is not talking to me,” she whispers, choosing the easy way out. “I… I try to show her that I’m still here. I bring her donuts and pastries…” She trails off, seeing her sister huffs out a laugh. Kara smiles too. “And I know, I know this won’t… it won’t make things better but… It’s been weeks, Alex. And I…”

 

“You miss her?”

 

“Yeah,” Kara confesses. “It’s just… I have been trying so hard to be a hero. I save people, Alex. I got powers to make a difference and the one thing, the one thing Lena wanted from me was to be her friend. To be Kara Danvers,” she whispers as Alex nods and listens. “And I am not... I am… Me,” Kara utters helplessly. “What type of hero can I be if I can’t protect those I care about from… me?”

 

Alex steps toward her, gripping her shoulder, and squeezes it softly. Kara missed this. She missed her sister. “It’s not your fault, Kara.” Alex whispers, looking at her intently.

 

“How is it not my fault?” She scoffs in disbelief, holding on to her sister’s hand, to the warmth she feels through her suit and against her skin.

 

“You do have incredible powers,” Alex concedes, whispering like they are in a bubble, just the two of them, even surrounded. Kara holds on to that and closes her eyes, following her sister’s voice as it chases away the sadness. “But you can’t fix everything, even as Supergirl. That’s what being human is all about. We make mistakes and there are things that are not in our control. Sometimes there is nothing to do but accept it and try again the next time.”

 

“That sucks,” Kara whispers back. She can’t remember Kryptonians making mistakes. Not like this. It was simpler back then. Kryptonians obeyed the law. There were rules for everything, even for relationships. Nothing was left to chance and all she had to do was to follow the law laid out for her. But now, Kara has choices. Now, she has hundreds of possibilities and she flounders in this new life, trying to determine what the right choice is even when none of them are necessarily right or wrong in the first place.

 

Alex laughs and hugs her tightly. “Give her more time. I’m sure she will come around.”

 

Kara nods and falls into her arms, squeezing her just as much but not too much. “Thanks, Alex.”

 

“Hey, Kara!” Mon-El suddenly says from the stairs. Kara grimaces, stepping away from her sister’s embrace.

 

“Can you?” Kara asks quietly.

 

Alex nods and Kara leaves quickly, hearing Mon-El’s protest as Alex explains to him that Kara has to leave to stop a robbery. She flies away, aimless and dejected before a big white sign catches her eyes, stuck on the windows of an office she knows all too well. Kara speeds up toward it with a racing heart and hope blooms inside her chest as she reads the sign and sees Lena waiting patiently for her on her couch, with an equally racing heart.

 

Humans aren’t perfect.

 

But Kryptonians aren’t either.

 

Humans make mistakes but they get back up and try again.

 

Kara Zor-El will too.

 

*******

 

Kara doesn’t know what to feel as she watches Lena blend in so seamlessly with her group of friends. Her family. She had been apprehensive and eager to introduce her to them after Lena signed all the NDA’s at the DEO. Apprehensive because Kara had been ready to defend Lena against her friends like she had to when everyone thought she had been guilty, but eager because she couldn’t wait for her friends to know the person behind the name. Behind the persona. She wanted them to get to know the soft, playful side of the CEO. The smiles and the jokes. The timid woman who hides behind red lipstick, perfectly tailored dresses, and an abrasive confidence. A woman looking for a home of her own.

 

To her surprise and delight, Lena is smiling, laughing, and drinking with her friends like she's always belonged there. Lena doesn’t need her help at all, and Kara watches her with a small smile from the corner Mon-El dragged to talk.

 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, blocking her view from their friends’ table.

 

“I didn’t mean to,” Kara sighs, rubbing her forehead. Suddenly exhausted and weary.

 

He crosses his arms with a frown on his face and it makes her feel guilty. “Is it something I said? Something I did?”

 

“No, it’s not you,” she reassures him quickly. “I… I have a lot on my mind.”

 

“Well, you can tell me…” he smiles boyishly, waiting for an answer that Kara is not willing to give. He scoffs, hands on his hips and frowns at her like he always does when he is about to blame her for something. To prove her that he is right. Taking all of the space with his body in order to make her feel small. “I thought we were together…” he says confused and full of reproach.

 

Kara frowns, straightening up automatically, taking all of the space around them too. “We are…”

 

“Are we? Cause you won’t talk to me. All you do is tell me what to do. Be better Mon-El. Try harder. Well I’m trying! I’m trying and you are not!” He lists loudly, mockingly.

 

Kara catches Lena’s eyes from across the room, green and calm, and Kara glares back at him. “Lower your voice!”

 

He doesn’t listen. He never does and Kara is tired.

 

“I thought we were a team, you and me…” he chuckles, gesturing at the both of them. “But all you do is brood because Lena Luthor stopped mooning over you!” He says pointing at the table where Lena is laughing with her friends. Kara longs to be there too and she catches his arm quickly to bring it back against his body. “You are a hypocrite, Kara Zor-El!” He continues with a smug smile and Kara narrows her eyes. “You ask me everyday to be better and perfect but you are not. You are not!” He says with emphasis and a bit of triumph in his voice as if he managed to bring her down, somehow.

 

Usually, Kara would have risen to the challenge like she did when he accused her to be on Mxyzptlk’s side in the middle of the DEO. She mistook it as banter. She looks at him now and she can’t believe how blind she has been. “It always comes down to the same thing with you.”

 

“What?” Mon-El says, suddenly thrown off.

 

“You are angry with me,” Kara states clearly. “You have always been. You think this is a competition but it’s not.” Mon-El tries to talk but Kara doesn’t let him, frustrated and angry, reigning herself in from punching him in the face. “I asked you why you wanted to work with me. You couldn’t answer me. I asked you if you liked me. You lied before telling me the truth. You don’t know what you want, Mon-El,” she whispers furiously as he steps back. “You think you want me but you don’t because every time I don’t conform to the image you have of me in your head, you lash out!”

 

“So what? You are telling me you aren’t crushing on Lena Luthor?” He asks waving away all of the things she just said, missing the point completely.

 

Kara breathes through her nose, willing herself to calm down. “I’m not.”

 

“Great!” He huffs and smiles. “Do we kiss and make up? I heard it was a thing…” he says wiggling his eyebrows.

 

Kara looks at him incredulously and pushes him away to walk back toward their table.

 

“Wait, where are you going?” He asks, stopping her with a hand on her arm.

 

Kara looks at it and brushes it away. “I’m leaving. I’m taking Lena home!”

 

“Wait, I’m sorry. I… I am jealous, okay. I’m not used to this. But please, if you care about me…”

 

Kara sighs, feeling the fight leave her body. “This is not working,” she whispers and leaves without looking back.

 

“Kara, please!”

 

Her eyes focus on green eyes, shining drunkenly and laughing with mirth like a beacon. Kara holds on to it as she puts Lena’s arm over her shoulder, leaving the bar quickly, pressing Lena’s warmth against hers like an anchor in the dark night.

 

Kara asks Lena if she’d be okay with a flight home and Lena answers her questions, slurring slightly, giggling a bit. Kara smiles and holds Lena tighter against her. She can’t wait to forget the night altogether.

 

“I might be drunk,” Lena mumbles quietly against her neck, “but I’m still super, super sharp!” And stumbles.

 

Kara laughs suddenly. It's like a weight lifting off of her chest. She feels like she might cry but she won’t. She won’t. Instead Kara holds on tightly to her friend, as much as Lena is holding on to her now, if not more. “You really are super sharp, right now. No doubt.”

 

Lena stops abruptly and watches her, eyes narrowed and confused. “Did I… Did I say that aloud or…” she pokes Kara’s cheek. “Can Kryptonians read minds?” She whispers fearfully, eyes wide and panicked.

 

“Yes, Lena. You said that aloud,” Kara laughs and pushes Lena’s finger away. “And no, Kryptonians can’t read mind.”

 

“Thank God!” She mumbles and Kara watches her curiously. Lena smiles sheepishly and her head falls back on Kara’s shoulders.

 

They walk quietly and Kara focuses on Lena’s heartbeat, on her scent and her warmth to drown out all the other noises away, the anxiety and residue of anger since her talk with Mon-El. She breathes against Lena’s temple and feels the stress wash away despite the scent of alcohol lingering in the air.

 

“How much did you have to drink?” Kara asks, concerned.

 

“Not enough,” Lena mumbles sadly.

 

She frowns, catching cloudy green eyes with her blue ones. “Why? What’s happening?”

 

Lena shrugs and hides away into her shoulder. Kara sighs and doesn’t push for more. She walks them to Lena’s penthouse, takes Lena’s keys from her stumbling hands, and opens the door. Lena makes a beeline for the couch and Kara chuckles softly at the lost look on her face following her every movement.

 

She uses her superspeed to grab Lena’s pajamas from her room and throws them quickly in her general direction before she fills up a glass of water for the CEO, medicine in hand.

 

Kara turns around, breathless, as Lena’s bare back shines under the moonlight. She gulps as she hears her moan while she takes away her bra, her jet black hair falling over tantalizing soft skin. She puts on her top and Kara clears her throat embarrassed and nervous. Lena turns toward her, surprised, and blushes as Kara hands her the medicine and the glass of water.

 

She needs to leave. She is not crushing on Lena Luthor. Her heart isn’t racing. Her fingers aren’t trembling as she hastens to bring the blanket Lena asked for. Her mouth isn’t dry as she speaks.

 

“All set?” And her voice is definitely not shaky.

 

Lena nods and Kara exhales, ready to leave before she makes a mistake.

 

“Why him?” Lena asks suddenly. Kara's hand freezes on the doorknob.

 

She should leave, Kara thinks. Open the door and fly away.

 

“You never mentioned him before,” Lena continues, and Kara is acutely aware of the warm body closing in on hers, trapping her against the door with no way out. “You could have, at movie night here two days ago or my office a week before and all the times you came by before that.” Kara closes her eyes briefly. She could have but she doesn’t know why she didn’t because she is suddenly transfixed by Lena’s hand on her shoulder, turning her away from the door. “Why Mon-El?” Lena asks, green eyes sober and bright, and Kara feels lost.

 

“He likes me and he tries his best.”

 

“Does he?” She scoffs slightly and Kara frowns.

 

“You don’t know him,” she retorts. They might not be on good terms right now but Mon-El is still her friend. She’ll never forget the sudden feeling of loss and confusion she felt when she landed on Earth, alone and scared. The last of their kind.

 

Lena sighs and nods. “I don’t. But from what I saw tonight…” Lena trails off and Kara gulps and tears up. She can’t deny that they aren’t compatible. They’ve been at each other’s throat since the beginning, clashing on everything and anything they could clash on. Kara had thought that she ought to get past her prejudices against Daxam, against his views on life and women and his overall personality and just give him a chance. Like the Danvers did for her. Mon-El lost his home and Kara did too and she thought… she thought…

 

“Do you love him?” Lena asks softly, hesitantly, trying to meet her eyes.

 

She likes the idea of him and what he reminds her of... “He reminds me of home,” Kara finally says.

 

“It’s not enough to be with someone,” Lena says with a shake of her head and eyes impossibly green and bright. Kara has to look away. “Why him?”

 

Kara clenches her jaw, looking intently at the floor, in fear that she might say too much. In fear that Lena might read things she wants so desperately to hide.

 

She wanted to have it all. She wanted to fall in love like humans do so easily. She thought she could try it out with him, and that maybe love would grow with time, and make her forget the details, the things she didn’t like as women do in all the movies she had watched with Alex.

 

But it didn’t get better as time went on.

 

It makes her wonder if the years lost in space didn’t break something inside her, if it didn’t doom her to reach for something she can never have. If it didn’t doom her to watch enviously everyone else but her fall in love.

 

Alex did. Clark did. Why couldn’t she?

 

“I was afraid to be alone,” Kara whispers finally, feeling her inside shake and ache as the revelation destr-

 

Lena kisses her.

 

Kara freezes against warm lips, hot breath, and burning hands.

 

Human temptation, her mind whispers.

 

Human connection, her heart retorts.

 

And Kara falls into it wholeheartedly, desperately, as she cradles Lena’s jaw between her hands and doesn’t let go. She breathes again as Lena tugs on her lower lip like a puppeteer would tug on the strings of her heart, jostling it back to life, into the moment.

 

Kryptonian body and human desire finally merging as one.

 

Kara shed away their clothes, desperate and eager to feel Lena’s body against hers. She presses her against the couch only to feel her heartbeat pound against her own as she sucks the skin of Lena’s neck and collarbone like someone would leave footprints in the snow. Lena moans and Kara exists. Right here, right now, on Lena’s skin.

 

Lena exhales, coming against her thigh, and Kara wants more. She kisses her way down Lena’s stomach before she is stopped and pushed against the back of the couch as Lena straddles her, breathless and hungry. She bites into her skin, scratches her ribs, and Kara groans, shivering at feeling so alive so suddenly.

 

She feels Lena’s tongue in between her legs. Kara groans and trembles, reminding herself to be careful, willing her body not to move too abruptly or strongly in Lena’s arms in fear that she might break her in the throes of pleasure. Lena holds on and Kara is suddenly afraid, breathless, as she feels the control of her body slip away, captured in between Lena’s lips for a few infinite seconds.

 

A few seconds too long.

 

Kara shudders as she tries to get her breath back, trembling in Lena’s arms. “We shouldn’t have done that,” she whispers as what they just did dawns suddenly on her.

 

The danger Kara puts everyone in when she loses control.

 

She gets up and quickly looks for her clothes, panicked and guilty for wanting something so selfish, so human when Lena could have been hurt because of it.

 

Lena watches her with that unreadable look in her eyes, something akin to acceptance or resignation... Kara doesn’t know, but she still feels her body tingle from the loss of control while the marks she left on Lena’s body glares back at her.

 

This is for the best, Kara tells herself, and tries to smile before she reaches for the door and closes it behind her.

 

Kara Zor-El isn’t human. She can’t believe she let herself forget that.

 

*******

 

“Please, don’t break another table, Kara…” Alex hisses quietly as J’onn debrief everyone on the last of CADMUS activities.

 

“What?” Kara looks down and sees the flat surface bending slightly under her hands. “Sorry…”

 

“Come on,” Alex says and Kara lets herself be led away. She watches Alex and J’onn share a look, and Alex nods. “Let’s go get ice cream.”

 

Kara frowns, confused. “What? Are you… are you sure?”

 

“Yeah, come on. It’s pretty slow today.”

 

“Yeah? Alright, then! Let’s go!” Kara grins and hastens to put on her normal clothes over her suit, Alex throws on a jacket and Kara feels giddy, suddenly uplifted.

 

Alex takes her to that park near the building and Kara walks in silence, content, eating her ice cream. It’s been awhile since they’ve done that. Kara missed this. The quiet love and the calm support her sister exudes.

 

“So, you broke up with Mon-El?” Alex states more than asks. Nearly all of the DEO has been privy to their shouting match a week ago.

 

Kara shrugs. “It wasn’t working.”

 

Alex hums, steering her toward a bench. “Is that why you’ve been sad?”

 

Kara shakes her head, sitting quietly next to her sister. “Not really. I feel pretty good about it actually.” She sees Alex nod next to her and Kara sighs, ice cream forgotten. “I… I slept with Lena and left her saying that it was a mistake and I haven’t talk to her since,” Kara says in a breath, waiting for her sister’s reaction.

 

“What?”

 

Kara is about to repeat it again before Alex stops her.

 

“No wait. I… I understood what you said. I just…” Alex looks at her, eyes wide. “When did that happen?”

 

“Two weeks ago…” Kara whispers. “After I took her home from the bar...”

 

“Oh…”

 

“Yeah…” Kara looks toward the sky, cloudy and grey, feeling her ice cream melt a bit on her fingers. “What do you think I should do? Should I go to her and pretend it never happened?”

 

“Why would you to that?”

 

Kara scoffs and finishes her ice cream before it melts all over her hand. “I’m not good at this,” she whispers finally. “I put myself out there and… look at what happened with Adam, James or Mon-El. It doesn’t work out. I mess up or I get scared or it doesn’t feel right, either way I…” Kara frowns, licking the remnant of ice cream off her fingers. “It never works out.”

 

Kara bites her lips, willing them not to tremble. Alex takes her by the arm and turns her toward her. “You won’t know until you try.”

 

Kara shakes her head, silent and still. She can’t do that. She can’t be vulnerable again only to be crushed. She might have an unbreakable body but Kara doesn’t think she can say the same for her heart.

 

“She loves you,” Alex whispers, looking at her intently, and Kara feels the tears gathering at the corner of her eyes.

 

“How… How do you… Did she tell you that?” Kara stutters, surprised and shocked. She scotches closer toward her sister, seeking warmth and comfort.

 

“Not in those terms,” Alex replies and puts an arm around her shoulder, drawing her against her side. Kara shudders and breathes deeply into the warm shoulder. “She didn’t have too. She was pounding drinks and glaring at Mon-El for practically the whole night. Even Winn noticed,” she jokes and Kara laughs wetly. “I know I pushed you to take a risk with Mon-El and it didn’t work out. But I’m going to push you to take a risk with Lena too.”

 

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

 

“Then it won’t and it’s okay. You move on,” Alex whispers against her temple. “I know it’s complicated with you being Supergirl, but Kara... No one is asking you to get it right on the first try.”

 

“It’s different on Krypton. You don’t choose your partner. It is already chosen for you,” Kara says, remembering her mother explain it to her. How every relationship was like a perfect link, the best partnership possible to better consolidate the society as a whole. “I lost my partner before knowing them. What if there’s no one else?”

 

“That’s not possible, Kara!” Alex assures her while squeezing her as hard as she can. Kara groans even though it doesn’t hurt. “We might not live with certainties here on Earth but if there is one thing I’m sure about is that there is someone for you. Look at me,” Alex demands suddenly and Kara does. She meets her sister’s eyes and breathes. “I thought I wouldn’t find love either but I just wasn’t looking at the right place. It just wasn’t the right time. And now I have Maggie. You can’t force love but it shouldn’t stop you from looking for it either,” Alex finishes with a smile and Kara wants to believe it too.

 

“What if I hurt her, when you know…?” Kara clears her throat, embarrassed, hoping Alex will understand what she is implying. But by the smirk on her face, Kara thinks that it is safe to say that she does. “What if I don’t control myself and something bad happens… You always told me to be careful because I’m not… I’m not human.”

 

“Did you hurt her when…?” Alex trails off and Kara wonders if they’ll just continue this conversation without ever saying the word.

 

Kara blushes. “No. It… It went fine. More than fine. It…”

 

Alex laughs, stopping her stammering. “I think I get it.” Kara smiles sheepishly and Alex hides hers behind her hand. “Trust yourself. Besides, you can have relationships without having sex,” Alex finally says it and Kara laughs. “Maybe talk to Lena. Take it one step at a time and you’ll decide what to do from there.”

 

Kara heaves a breath, feeling suddenly lighter, less angry and a little bit less sad. “Thanks Alex. I missed this.”

 

Alex squeezes her arm with a small, fond smile. “I missed it too.”

 

“I’ll talk to Lena and maybe we can have a movie night. You and me. Like we used to?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Kara nods relieved and happy. Alex’s phone rings and they both groan.

 

“It’s the DEO.”

 

“What’s happening?”

 

Alex frowns and stands up abruptly, looking at her worriedly. “It’s Winn. He activated his SOS signal.”

 

“What? Where is he?” Kara asks as they run back toward the DEO.

 

“At the new L-Corp lab with Lena.”

 

Kara doesn’t hear anything else. She veers off, changes clothes at the next alley and flies off.

 

She lands in chaos. All of the windows have exploded and there is glass everywhere. Hank Henshaw is holding Lena and Kara doesn’t think twice before punching him. Cadmus’ Operatives encircles her and Kara is thrown against a wall. She flies into Henshaw and punches him repeatedly before he locks her in a standstill. Kara grits her teeth as she feels the pressure of his hands twist her arms.

 

A gun goes off. Kara throws Hank Henshaw away from her and turns around.

 

Lena is looking at her, eyes wide and glassy. There’s blood pouring out of her chest and she crumbles to the floor.

 

Kara screams.

 

She presses her trembling hands on the wound as the DEO storms the building and Kara tries desperately to stop the blood from leaving Lena’s body. She tries to smile. She tries to be reassuring. She tries to give Lena hope as she tells her to stay awake and fight. To stay with her but Lena closes her eyes.

 

And Kara stops breathing.

 

Kara doesn’t want to be human anymore.

 

She wants the cold, Kryptonian pragmatism back. She wants the certitude, the detachment, the absence of desire and self-improvement. Kara wants the fatalism that rest on the principle of life. The law, absolute and perpetual, anchored into the cycle of nascent stars and dying ones.

 

She no longer cares for the choices anymore. She doesn’t want the hundreds of possibilities or the what-ifs. She doesn’t want the uncertainties on which human life is based on.

 

Weren’t humans punished for being too greedy, Kara asks herself, hands red with Lena’s blood, doomed to long for things within their grasp, only to lose them as soon as they reach for it?

 

*******

 

She hasn’t been able to concentrate lately. J’onn gave her a leave from the DEO, calling her only for emergencies. Kara was doing more damage than good anyway and the DEO got tired of replacing furniture. Snapper hasn’t even grumbled at her, once.

 

She knows she shouldn’t because Lena never gave her permission but Kara can’t stay at her apartment alone, waiting for news, waiting for Lena to wake up. Instead she goes to the penthouse and cleans, buy groceries and sleep on the couch huddled in that blanket they use for movie nights. Alex finds her there and they eat ice cream in the silent penthouse.

 

Lena wakes up three days after and Kara takes care of her. Silently, unable to form words that won’t reveal the fear and the anger boiling inside. And so she stays silent and glares at Jess every time the secretary drops by to update Lena on L-Corp.

 

After two weeks of mandatory bed rest. The doctor releases Lena from the hospital and Kara helps her get dressed silent and paralyzed.

 

“I’d like to go home,” Lena whispers, voice still hoarse from disuse.

 

Kara nods, trying hard to control her quivering insides. To contain the rage and the fear inhabiting her body.

 

“You’ve been here,” Lena states, sounding confused as soon as Kara opens the door of the penthouse.

 

Kara clenches her jaw. She goes to the kitchen, goes through the groceries she bought, and takes out the pills she picked up for Lena. “I’ll fix us some food. You’ll take your medication and have a nap,” Kara says, perfectly measured and controlled. She takes out plates and cutlery mechanically from drawers and cupboards and spreads some butter quietly, evenly on the bread, careful not to leave one spot dry.

 

“You don’t have to do that,” Lena says, walking toward her and Kara feels the knife in her hand bend and twist under her grip. “I can do this on my own. You can go…” Lena whispers and Kara can’t contain it anymore.

 

The knife falls from her hand. The sound echoes violently in the sudden silence.

 

“I’m not leaving!” Kara hisses, frustrated and angry. She feels her muscles tense and she trembles as rage and fear courses through her. Lena stares at her, surprised and mute and it maddens her even more. “You can’t… just… You can’t just do that! You could have died! You were this close to die!”

 

“I…” Lena begins to say but Kara sees in her green eyes that she doesn’t get it. Lena was this close to leaving her and Kara is tired of having to say goodbye.

 

“No! Just…” Kara interrupts her, raising her hands in frustration, fuming inside. “You don’t need to protect me. I don’t need it!”

 

“So, I should’ve let you die?” Lena asks incredulous.

 

Kara doesn’t answer. She tries to control her breathing instead. She tries to calm herself down before she says something she might regret.

 

“We both know it was a Kryptonite bullet in that gun!”

 

“I can handle it!” She screams while clutching at the front of her sweater because she can’t shake away the stickiness of Lena’s blood on her hands. Kara screams because she won’t ever forget the deafening silence after Lena’s heart stopped beating for eleven seconds in that operating room.

 

Lena scoffs. “Having incredible powers doesn’t make you invincible, Kara!”

 

“I’m here for a reason and it’s not for you to play the hero!” She hisses back in anger because Kara Zor-El is unbreakable. Lena Luthor isn’t.

 

“Weren’t you the one to tell me to be my own hero?”

 

Kara’s heart stutters. She did. She urged Lena to be her own hero and the anger suddenly leaves her body. “Not like this,” she whispers, small and broken. Not if she has to lose her too. “You are only human, Lena.”

 

Lena recoils, shocked and Kara walks toward her, reaching blindly for the impossible, for the very thing she never thought she could have.

 

Kara traps Lena’s body against the fridge and leans into her. “You are human… and beautiful and fragile…” she whispers, pressing her forehead against Lena’s, and inhales deeply, trying to find an anchor. Something to ground her unbreakable body away from the dark, emptiness of space. “You are human and you are not expandable.”

 

“Neither are you,” Lena whispers holding on to her.

 

Kara presses her body against breakable bones and even softer skin, and holds on. “I can’t lose you,” she cries, asking silently for Lena not to leave her alone, lost and scared, in the silence again.

 

That night and every other night after that, Lena holds her and doesn’t let go. Kara listen to Lena’s heartbeat, ear pressed against her chest, as they go to sleep.

 

It’s not easy. Kara is afraid to fall. But every day she falls a little bit more for the woman who smile at her after a day of work as Kara waits for her with dinner ready.

 

The first night Kara has to leave to take care of an emergency in the middle of the night, she finds the balcony door unlocked, a light still on and Lena already fast asleep, next to Kara’s pajamas carefully folded on the bed. A day later, Kara finds a set of keys laid innocently next to her messenger bag.

 

It surprises her at first how normal Lena is. How utterly simple her life is behind the walls of her penthouse. When she has the time, Lena likes to cook, dancing to whatever song is playing on her phone. She rarely uses the fancy dishwasher in her kitchen. Most of the time, Lena washes their plates, humming to herself, dries them and puts them away while Kara watches her from the dinner table, laptop out, pretending to work on an article.

 

When she isn’t at work, Lena spends a lot of time on her phone, even at odds hours. Kara sometimes comes back from patrolling the city to find her on a conference call with several investors while playing Freecell on her laptop and tweaking a new project of hers on her desk or folding some laundry. Kara always waits for the call to end before she goes to bed. She never has to wait long.

 

Kara goes less and less to her apartment for a change of clothes as they now get their own space in Lena’s closet, as does her toiletries in the bathroom and her popcorn and other sugary goodness Lena tries not to indulge in too much, in the kitchen.

 

It doesn’t happen often when Kara has to come back later than Lena to the penthouse but when she does she finds her talking and drinking with Alex and they all wait for Maggie to finish her shift before they order take-outs and eat in front of the TV.

 

A month and a half in, Kara kisses Lena in the middle of game night after they have successfully spelled the word _obstreperous_ backward as a team. It shocks them both and Kara is paralyzed before Winn urges her to roll the dice and move their game piece. The table groans collectively as Team SuperCorp glides across the board and distances the others. It’s Maggie turns and she grabs a blue card, the category on which Team Sanvers has been stuck on and tries desperately to mold some play-dough for Alex to guess the shape. James urges them to be quicker as he holds the timer and Winn get hit on the head by some flying play-dough for screaming too much. Lena smiles at her and places a warm hand on her thigh for the rest of the night.

 

At the beginning of the second month, it suddenly dawns on her how homey this all feels. How normal and effortless they came to be. Kara watches Lena wash their plates and she no longer stops the hunger from blooming inside her chest. Kara longs for human connections and she finds it with Lena’s skin between her lips. She moves dark hair to the side and sucks on the back of Lena’s neck. Lena groans, turning off the water, hands soapy as she arches into her. Kara’s hand slowly travel down her stomach, past her pants and Lena holds on to the edges of the sink and bites her lips, head thrown back as Kara holds her against her chest, sucking on the pulsing skin so willingly offered.

 

Intimacy is an exercise in trust that Kara sometimes finds hard to navigate and when Lena faces her, spent and sweaty, kissing her eagerly to return the favor; Kara stops her, shaking her head and whispers a request for cuddling instead.

 

Lena nods, kissing her forehead. She steers them both toward the bedroom, on the bed and asks Kara to trust her when she takes their clothes off. Kara nods breathlessly and cuddles into the warm, pliant skin. Kara exhales softly as she presses her ear against the calm, beating heart and falls asleep with Lena’s hand tracing lazy circles on her back.

 

At the end of the third month, Kara doesn’t go back to her apartment anymore. When she thinks of home, she thinks of quiet nights in front of the TV with Lena in her arms while she recounts, step by step, her epic saving of cats and other incongruous things she gets to do. They gossip about the latest scandal at their respective office or talk about Lena and Wnn’s latest project.

 

Intimacy is an exercise in trust and while she trusts Lena wholeheartedly, Kara still doesn’t trust her Kryptonian body from reacting to strongly against Lena more fragile one.

 

But it doesn’t mean Kara doesn’t want to try.

 

Four months in and they still practice regularly. Sometimes all night and Kara quiets her fear, little by little, with soft kisses and incandescent embrace, playful bites and muffled laughs. Kara lets herself fall a little bit deeper as Lena whispers that she loves her too against her lips.

 

Kara never thought she would get to live a normal life. She never thought she would get to fall in love. But she does. She falls for the details, the little gestures Lena does without pretention, without expectations. She falls for the quiet, unassuming ways Lena keeps asking her to stay and she chuckles suddenly at the memory of flowers overflowing her office.

 

“Remember that day you sent me hundreds of flowers to my office?” Kara whispers nuzzling Lena’s ear as she turns away from the TV and nods, donut put aside. Kara smiles. “You told me I was your hero…”

 

Lena licks the excess of sugar off her fingers and Kara is thrown back to quiet conversations, in the privacy of Lena’s office, sharing donuts and secrets.

 

“You are my hero too, you know,” she whispers because she lost everything once and despite her efforts to blend in; Kara Zor-El never felt like she’ll truly find her place among humans. But Lena Luthor proves her wrong by giving her, every day, the one thing Kara has desired for so long. The one thing she has been looking for but could never find. The most human experience of all.

 

“Even if I’m human?” Lena smirks.

 

Kara sees the hesitance; the slight insecurity hidden deep in green eyes and she rolls her eyes. She proved Lena Luthor’s innocence to the world once; she will prove to Lena that she can be her home too. Kara takes her into her arms and doesn’t let go. “Especially because you are human,” she whispers against warm, sugary lips.

 

Lena smiles and Kara gets to have it all.

 

One step at a time.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The game is Cranium if anyone's wondering. And Kryptonians background is taken a bit from Man Of Steel and a bit made up. Thank you for reading. Take care! :)
> 
> I swear it's the last chapter!


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